ewsieg

See, if you go back far enough, the root of the problem is always elite democrats wanting more for themselves. 😉

I still would like to see them improve in some areas, but your point is legitimate.

I'm not saying Trump isn't in the Epstein files, I'm just saying the level of involvement he had is probably what has already been reported. I believe the same for quite a few others tied to him like Clinton and Gates. More salacious stuff came out on Prince Andrew. Ultimately I suspect Epstein was what I would guess most pedophiles are like, scared that someone will find out. Thus he liked to stay around powerful people in the hopes that would help him, but unless he saw a real opportunity, like he did with Prince Andrew, he didn't let people know his other side. Maybe he dropped some hints when you look back on it, but that's about it, IMO.

My best guess is we already know 99% of the Epstein stuff and there really isn't anything further being hidden that would hurt Trump or anyone else. 1) If Biden had dirt on Trump, how could he not release it? 2) Look at Trumpers in power that would be responsible for Epstein files. Patel, Bongino, Bondi, etc have come out and said there is nothing there. These are folks that truly believed their was something being hidden, but once they get the files they try to 'dump' everything that was released already like it was a big deal and hoped that would satisfy the people they brainwashed. 3) Elon is a drug addicted hot head, he would have tweeted the evidence today if he had it. All that said, it is kind of fun to say 'Epstein did not kill himself'. I wouldn't be shocked if I was wrong though.

Elon is out there claiming the Epstein files haven't been fully released due to Trump's involvement now. I have stuff to do tonight, but I just want to get some popcorn and watch this.

Tasty? possibly, but unlikely. Elon already supplanted his own 'deep state' in multiple agencies through his work with DOGE. He'll end up getting whatever he wants and everyone around Trump will lie to him saying that they hurt Elon 'very badly' to get Trump to move on from yelling at Elon. That said, I am all for an all out Elon vs Trump civil war.

Noem has been focusing not only effort, but money on the border as well, to the detriment of other Homeland security issues. I know people loved to mock Trump by teasing that President Musk was really in charge. I'd take President Musk over President Miller though.

The issue many of those constituents have is what has been the de facto US policy for many many years, across many different political parties has largely been the same. In recent history, I will say the general thought is that the GOP has been more pro-Israel, but in reality, the DNC has been pretty pro-Israel as well. There is certainly much more lip service towards the Palestinians from the DNC, but what policies can you point to that shows there is a difference between the two parties in the last 30 years, minus the last 5 months. Meanwhile, Trump was out there saying he is anti-war, regardless of which war. That was appealing to the many in Dearborn area. As you may be aware, I don't hold Trump to any high esteem but even I was surprised that his solution would be to let Israel clear out all Palestinians and build hotels on the coast. But even with that, it's not like Tlaib endorsed Trump, she just simply refused to endorse Harris.

To go further, like every district in the US, there are some unique aspects to each. Some much different then others. If Kamala can only win by getting the full support of a Socialist Democrat's district, my guess is she would lose votes elsewhere based on that platform. IMO, you really want to increase your odds of winning in 2028, find a ton of folks on the left that are willing to not go lock-step with the DNC in every district that is considered hard red. Don't force litmus tests on abortion and guns. Find people that lean left but still sound and act like the same people they are running to represent. And let them say they don't agree with the 2028 Dem nominee on some aspects, but then give the reasons why they think they should still support democratic candidates at all levels.

But again, did Tlaib run against her own party's nominee, or did Kamala run against Tlaib's own constituents in this district?

There are politicians that I don't agree with AND I don't like. Tlaib is one of them. I don't think she is a good person AND I don't think she's particularly smart. But blaming her for Trump....hahaha. That's hilarious. Because she wouldn't fall in line with Harris...just laughable. Kamala lost ground on middle eastern voters in Tlaib's district because many shared Tlaib's outrage regarding Gaza. Instead of Kamala finding a way to bridge that gap, she felt those votes were still guaranteed and chose to pander to the opposite side, trying to get more votes there. Honestly I haven't even looked at the numbers, it may not have even been that bad of a decision. Ultimately that was a DNC/Kamala determination though.

One of the best - No Doubt while opening for Bush late 90's at the Breslin Center. 35-40 minutes of pure energy. Probably helped that I was really into Ska at the time too. One of the worst - No Doubt as a headliner a year or two later, it was basically the same show, but they drug out quite a few of the songs with stupid crowd play to get it to a 80-90 minute show. Boring Most surprising show - AJR. Saw them at Pine Knob a few years ago because my daughter liked them. I knew some of the songs from my kids playing it in the house, but really didn't know them well. Very visual show and was impressed by the music as well. Saw them at LCA and honestly expected a let down thinking a lot of it had to be the same, nope, still very visual, but whole new concept.

My buddy Tony told me a story about parking on a street for a show at Harpo's and he sees an interaction with a guy that got out of a car ahead of him and another guy on the sidewalk and the guy leaving the car tells the guy on the sidewalk to screw off. Guy on the sidewalk then looks at Tony and says "It costs $5 to park here". Tony hands him five bucks and another friend of his tries to say they don't have to pay, but Tony just ushers his buddy away. Fast forward to after the show and they are walking back to the car and see a large group just standing around the street. Everything that refused to pay the guy $5 came back to find no guy and no car. Tony jumped in his car and drove off.

I was seeing reports of this early this morning but not from any accounts I knew or trusted. With it being underwater I wonder how difficult it'll be to get an assessment on how successful it was. Guess we'll have an idea by how long they choose not to use that span.

MAGA likes to talk about American greatness but we just watched a country, which even Zelenskyy would admit has had it's fair share of issues even prior to Russia interference, embrace US assistance many years ago to get legitimate training by US/Nato allies, and now three years after war with the 2nd most powerful army in the world (At least at the time this started in 2022) they are not only holding their own, they are able to make these types of attacks. That right there is American greatness. That alone shows what a supportive foreign policy can do. I still hate that the US and/or the EU haven't found a way to force an end to this war, but props to Ukraine for being so innovative and persistent.

https://www.newsweek.com/cory-booker-responds-nazi-salute-accusation-2079527 i did not expect Cory Booker to be the next person after Elon to come out as a Nazi.

The Bad: Week of 5/26 - So no clear cut winner IMO for this week. We heard some more grifting news, right down to the allegation that the Trump plane wasn't given, but more or less provided in a possible 'shake down'. Tariff ping pong is back with China plus the administration attacked the judiciary over a ruling regarding across the board tariffs. He's mad at Putin, which he expresses by saying he's disappointed and then flipping over to admonishing Zelenskyy. So it's really just been an across the board continuation of some of the worse things he's already done. So with none of that standing out above the rest, I'm going with the Student Visa decision by Trump. Note: I'm going to address this on the 'vote for your best interest' mantra many subscribe too. There may be a legitimate argument that schools that take public dollars may be taking in too many foreign students. From a capitalistic point of view, I could see schools doing this as those students by enlarge aren't getting discounted tuition, so it's a cash grab. From a 'let's weaken the US further' view, foreign students are mostly the best and brightest from their country and many end up choosing to stay here, bringing new expertise and knowledge, which leads to better research/jobs for the United States. If anything, I could see other countries being more upset about this then us as basically we act as their 'brain drain' taking their best and brightest and having them benefit our society more than theirs. The cruelty around it though is what makes it the winner this week for me.

I agree with you that there is no comparison between Trump and the next worst president we ever had, regardless of who you may put at the #2 spot, let alone Biden or any other recent democratic president, of which I wouldn't even think of if we're talking top 10 worse presidents ever. Yet i'm told there is no issue with criticizing democrats, but if I agree with another poster on a 'soft' criticism of all recent presidents (because that includes some D's too), even as i'm making a point they are not nearly as bad as Trump, and then go further to dump on the MAGA followers that conflate karma with payback, the response is somehow "....but Trump!".

Truthfully I know most of you don't think that, since TheCouga isn't here anymore, probably all. But often, my guess is because of the fact that some of you had well over 10 years of me being one of the conservatives on this forum, criticizing a democrat has been met with "...but Trump!" As pointed out in this thread, I criticized the GOP and still got a "...but Trump!"

I've reread my original post a few times and don't see it as a defense of what Republicans are doing, in fact my post was a criticism of what the GOP is doing, I simply started the post agreeing to something Oblong said (pardons have gotten out of control in the last 30 years or so). In fact the 2nd paragraph starting out saying that Trump was taking it to a new level. I don't see how that is drawing an equivalence between them. All that said, my dem complaints I used in follow up are all legitimate. Small potatoes compared to Trump, but legitimate none the less.

Also Dems “we need more gun laws”.

“Hunter Biden had initially agreed to plead guilty to a negotiated misdemeanor tax charge as part of a deal with the Justice Department. That deal would have seen the gun charges dismissed in a diversion agreement as long as he stayed out of trouble for two years and likely would have come with a recommendation for no prison time. The agreement collapsed last year after a federal judge in Delaware questioned several unusual aspects, including how it was packaged” Apnews.com

It's an entire thread dedicated to just trying to pick the worst thing he's done during a specific week. I did this because there is so much bad that he does day to day, it's often difficult to remember the worst things as he always does something else bad to redirect from that previous bad thing. More than willing to discuss all the bad things Trump has done, i've done it for almost 10 years now, but i'm not going to pretend Dems are infallible even if their misdeeds are the fraction of the level Trump has done.

I hope there is a day where most people in DC wouldn't do the same thing and let their kids deal with the consequences of their actions. I think you managed to get out every possible Dem talking point on the subject though. I was asked to show something that Biden did involving bribery (despite me clearly stating that I didn't think Biden had done anything different than most recent presidents and stating Trump was taking it to a new level). So yes, I threw in that little jab to document a clear monetary reason for Biden not to have his son go to jail. It's a reach, I'm not pretending it isn't, but if you think this was the first time Hunter used his dad's name to grift and in return, passed some money back to Dad as a thank you, you're kidding yourself. Any proof Biden allowed that though, or even did it when he was in a position of power? Nope. But is that because it never happened or because MSM put the same amount of effort into finding out then they did when they took the 50 intel officers letter like the gospel and declared everything fake? Sorry, I will stop now. I'm realizing all i'm doing is burying my original point, which is I hope both sides can see things they don't like the other side doing and make the choice to do the right thing when in power. MAGA would probably still get riled up over Marc Rich, but they defend pardons from other convicted felons where bribery is transparent. One of Whitmers top talking points was adding more transparency, once she gets into power, she deflects. Rules for the, not for me. The motto of most long standing politicians.

Gee, I wonder what the implication was for them to say that. We also have reporters, (they aren't fake just because they found stuff you don't like), that took the time and effort to vet information believed to be from the laptop and specific to that email, they verified it was real. I brought up Hunter specifically because I was asked to give examples of Biden pardons that were questionable and that one certainly was. I was perfectly fine pointing out 'both sides' in recent history leading up to Trump 2.0 had pardon issues and still pointed out Trump 2.0 is taking it to a new level. But hilariously, some of you that claim to see things so clearly, can't help but get so defensive when a democrat may have done something wrong, even if it's become more of a modern norm. I see you're newer here. Not sure if new or new account, but you're not going to find a Trump apologist in me. I am a republican and only recently decided that (again). I have never voted for Trump and after he took over my party I figured I was an independent, despite mostly voting for Democrats (voted for Candice Miller in 2024 for a county seat, but did check to see if she had endorsed or even said anything positive about Trump before doing so). Ultimately though, **** Trump. The GOP is mine, not his. Doesn't look like I'll win, but I'm going to fight for it.